A Perfect Life....

Life was perfect.

They were an ideal couple. Atleast this was what people called them. He had a perfect job, a perfect wife and a perfect home. The children were well behaved and oh yes... perfect. All this perfection made their contemporaries green with envy.

She gave all the credit to her husband. He was loving and caring. He never had any problems with her looks, her body, her figure. He was never over possessive. He loved their children and took good care of them. She could not have asked for anything else.

She would spend her days taking care of her family. But as night would come, she would go to her bed and after making sure that everybody was asleep, she wept. She cried under the blankets, drowning the sounds of the sobs. She wept in her dreams. Her husband never knew about it. And she made sure that he never would.

She wondered why did this happen. She was happy. Or was she? She was ought to be happy. But she wasn't. She was trying her best to be happy, to change herself, to enjoy her life. She wanted to embrace happiness. But she couldn't. She felt bad about it. She thought she was the most selfish creature on the earth. She wondered if all the good things in her life don't make her happy, then nothing will. She felt helpless.

Her husband was always good to her right from the time they had met. He had done everything to make her happy. She was madly in love with him. But something somewhere had gone wrong. Her mind went back to an incident.

In the early years of their relationship, they had a very bad fight. She wanted to move out, to take a break from the relationship. He wanted her to stay. She did not budge. He desperately wanted to do something to make her stay. And so he did. He forced himself on her. At first she was shocked. He was her best friend. How could he do that to her. She cried and cried. But then she wondered whether she deserved it. What she felt then was unspeakable.

In a moment, she transformed from being a love-sick girl living a fairytale, to a much matured person. Matured and broken. She had stayed with him. Why? She never found the answer.

The painful memory brought her back to the present moment. She went in her kids room to check up on the children. She had beautiful kids. And she did everything she could to take good care of them. She loved them.

So what was her problem. Why was she not able to move on with life and forget everything the past.
Her train of thoughts were broken by the beep of the alarm clock. It was 7:00 am. She wiped her tears and woke up her husband with a kiss.

Life was perfect.....

The last time I saw you.....

She was sitting in front of the mirror with her beautician, at her sprawling sea-facing bungalow. Getting costly beauty treatments at the luxury of her home was a norm for her. She had undergone all the possible procedures to retain her looks. She always preferred to call her beautician at her home because going out always resulted in attracting unwanted attention. Afterall she was the wife of the biggest super star in India.

He was on an unusual holiday, doing things he loved to do when he got a chance to be at home; playing with his children, reading, watching TV and occasionally writing. But that day he was in a rather pensive mood and just wanted to relax in his bedroom. He went to his room to lie down but ended up watching his wife getting all "dolled up".

He was looking at her reflection from the mirror and was amused. How could he stay with the same woman for all these years. He had got plenty of opportunities to fool around, but he always stayed away from all that. He remembered how he had met her in college. It was anything but love at first sight. Both of them took their time to know each other. Both of them resisted the relationship at first, but eventually ended up together.

They had a lot of fun together, but also had their share of ups and downs. But as they say..........love conquers all. They survived all odds. They were not the "perfect" couple. He was short tempered and job hopping but at the same time a very caring guy. On the other hand, she was an average looking girl with a heart of gold. For him, she was the prettiest girl he had ever met. He made her feel like a princess. She was graceful yet simple. And he loved her for that.

He got his first break after struggling for a couple of years. Both of them were on cloud nine. Then there were more movies and bigger successes. By then, she was settled in her career. Marriage was an obvious extension to this love story.

Their relationship was under wraps in the beginning. But during one of their courtship days when the two of them were out for dinner, the paparazzi caught up with them. They clicked a lot of pictures of the couple. The pictures appeared in a news item the next day which read "A Humble Love Story". It reported how a superstar had fallen for a simple and humble girl.
She was hurt. Something inside her had snapped

Eventually more and more people got to know of their relationship. And the media began to scrutinize her every dress, her shoes, her nails, her every move and panned her for her choices. She was determined to prove them wrong. Determination and a lot of money helped her change. The same people who used to criticize her, had now begun to appreciate her every look. They also termed her the "most beautiful bride" when shegot married. She had won and she never looked back after that. He got more and more famous, she got more and more "beautiful".

The beautician said something and he came back from his thoughts. Somehow he felt her beauty, her innocence had lost under her makeup and designer clothes. He felt the person he loved had stopped existing. He loved her, but it was not the same. Their dreams were fulfilled, but yet something seemed to be missing. He felt like talking to her many times, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings. He did not even remember when was the last time he sat with her and just chatted away, like they used to in the past.

The beautician left after some time. He was still looking at her. She was still sitting in front of the mirror, all scrubbed clean, without any makeup, in a night gown. She was slightly resembling the person he had fallen in love with. He went and stood behind her, kept his hands on her shoulders and looked at her reflection. He brought his head near her ear and whispered "I love you". She was surprised, yet she smiled back and said "I love you too". In that moment, he noticed that her eyes still twinkled the way they had when he had proposed to her. In a moment, all the issues seemed to have solved, all the questions answered and all the doubts cleared.

A new love story had begun......